Free Labour, Free Women. Re-appraising Harriet Taylor’s Feminist Economics

Journal title HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Author/s Alberto Giordano
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/2
Language English Pages 18 P. 45-62 File size 72 KB
DOI 10.3280/SPE2013-002003
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Harriet Taylor has been long forgotten as an economist and political philosopher, while merely remembered as John Stuart Mill’s friend and belatedly wife. Never was fate more unjust: we only need to recall that Taylor - whose liberal background soon led her to be fascinated by socialist theories and the evolution of labour movements - wrote chapter VII of the fourth book of the Principles of Political Economy, the well-known On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes. Not to mention, moreover, her reflections on social mobility, women’s rights and female participation to the labour market, delivered in brilliant essays like Enfranchisement of Women. Detaching from mainstream Taylor’s scholarship, this paper tries to confer autonomy to her economic thought (compared to Mill’s) by suggesting that its original feature lies in the correspondence she established amid the liberation of the working classes and women’s enfranchisement, in order to place Taylor’s ideas in a more accurate intellectual perspective.

Keywords: Feminist economics, liberalism, socialism, labour market, women’s rights, Harriet Taylor Mill, John Stuart Mill

Jel codes: B12, B14, B31, B54, J71

  1. Bodkin R.G. (1999). Women’s Agency in Classical Economic Thought: Adam Smith, Harriet Taylor Mill and J. S. Mill, Feminist Economics, 5(1): 45-60. DOI: 10.1080/135457099338148
  2. Brown L.S. (2002). The Politics of Individualism. Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism, Montréal, New York and London, Black Rose Books.
  3. Cady Stanton E. (1889). A History of Woman Suffrage , vol. I, Rochester, N.Y., Fowler and Wells.
  4. Caine B. (1994). Feminism and Political Economy in Victorian England – or John Stuart Mill, Henry Fawcett and Henry Sidgwick Ponder the Woman Question. In Groenewegen (ed.)(1994): 25-45.
  5. Claeys G. (1987). Justice, Independence, and Industrial Democracy: The Development of John Stuart Mill’s Views on Socialism, The Journal of Politics, 49(1): 122-47. DOI: 10.2307/2131137
  6. Cole G.D.H. (1953). Socialist Thought: the Forerunners (1789-1850), London, Macmillan.
  7. Davis M. (2009). Comrade or Brother? A History of the British Labour Movement, London, Pluto Press.
  8. Denis H. (1965). Histoire de la pensée économique, 2 vols., Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.
  9. Deutscher P. (2006). When Feminism is ‘High’ and Ignorance is ‘Low’: Harriet Taylor Mill on the Progress of the Species, Hypatia, 21(3): 136-150. DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2006.tb01117.x
  10. Dimand M.A., R.W. Dimand and E.L. Forget (eds.)(1995). Women of Value: Feminist Essays on the History of Women in Economics, Aldershot, U.K. and Brookfield, Vt., Edward Elgar Publishing.
  11. Dimand M.A., R.W. Dimand and E.L. Forget (eds.)(2000). A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Cheltenham, U.K., and Northampton, Mass., Edward Elgar Publishing.
  12. Dimand R.W., E.L. Forget and C. Nyland (2004). Gender in Classical Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(1): 229-40.
  13. Dimand R.W. and C. Nyland (eds.)(2003). The Status of Women in Classical Economic Thought, Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, Mass., Edward Elgar Publishing.
  14. Eatwell J., M. Milgate and P. Newman (eds.)(1987). The New Palgrave. A Dictionary of Economics, vol. IV, London, Macmillan.
  15. Elshtain J.B. (ed.)(1982). The Family in Political Thought, Amherst, Ma., The University of Massachusetts Press.
  16. Folbre N. (1991). The Unproductive Housewife: Her Evolution in Nineteenth-Century Economic Thought, Signs, 16(3): 463-84.
  17. Forget E.L. (1999). The Social Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say, London and New York, Routledge.
  18. Forget E.L. (2003). John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor and French Social Theory. In Dimand and Nyland (eds.)(2003): 285-309.
  19. Fourier C. (1972). Teoria dei quattro movimenti e altri scritti, edited by M. Larizza, Turin, UTET.
  20. Franklin B. (1782). Information for Those Who Would Remove to America. In Franklin (1959): 273-82.
  21. Franklin B. (1959). Autobiography and Selected Writings, edited by D. Wecter and L. Ziff, Toronto, Rinehart and Co.
  22. Groenewegen P. (ed.)(1994). Feminism and Political Economy in Victorian England, Aldershot, U.K. and Brookfield, Vt., Edward Elgar Publishing.
  23. Hall C., K. McClelland and J. Rendall (2004). Defining the Victorian Nation. Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  24. Hayek F.A. (1951). John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor. Their Friendship and Subsequent Marriage, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
  25. Hirschmann N.J. (2008). Mill, Political Economy, and Women’s Work, American Political Science Review, 102(2): 181-98. DOI: 10.1017/S0003055408080180
  26. Jacobs J.E. (1994). ‘The Lot of Gifted Ladies Is Hard’: A Study of Harriet Taylor Mill Criticism, Hypatia, 9(3): 132-62. DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.1994.tb00453.x
  27. Jacobs J.E. (2002). The Voice of Harriet Taylor Mill, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind., Indiana University Press.
  28. Rendall J. (1987). Virtue and Commerce: Women in the Making of Adam Smith’s Political Economy. In Kennedy and Mendus (eds.)(1987): 44-76.
  29. Kahan A.S. (1992). Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press.
  30. Kamm J. (1987). Taylor, Harriet. In Eatwell, Milgate and Newman (eds.)(1987): 612.
  31. Kennedy E. and S. Mendus (eds.)(1987). Women in Western Political Philosophy. Kant to Nietzsche, Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books.
  32. Krouse R.W. (1982). Patriarchal Liberalism and Beyond: From John Stuart Mill to Harriet Taylor. In Elshtain (ed.)(1982): 159-72.
  33. Lacey C.A. (ed.)(1987). Barbara Bodichon and the Langham Place Group, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
  34. Marx K. and F. Engels (2006[1848]). Communist Manifesto, Mountain View, Ca., New York Labor News.
  35. Mendus S. (1994). John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor on Women and Marriage, Utilitas, 6(2): 287-99. DOI: 10.1017/S0953820800001643
  36. Mill J.S. (1848). Principles of Political Economy, with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, 1st ed., London, John W. Parker and Son.
  37. Mill J.S. (1849). Principles of Political Economy, with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, 2nd ed., London, John W. Parker and Son.
  38. Mill J.S. (1852a). Principles of Political Economy, with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, 3rd ed., vol. I, London, John W. Parker and Son.
  39. Mill J.S. (1852b). Principles of Political Economy, with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, 3rd ed., vol. II, London, John W. Parker and Son.
  40. Mill J.S. (1869). The Subjection of Women, London, Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer.
  41. Mill J.S. (1873). Autobiography, London, Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer.
  42. Mill J.S. (1879). Chapters on Socialism, Fortnightly Review, 25(2): 217-37; ibid., 25(3): 373-82; ibid., 25(4): 513-30.
  43. Mill J.S. (1972). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. XIV, The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill (1849-1873), Part I, edited by F.E. Mineka and D.N. Lindley, Toronto and London, University of Toronto Press and Routledge and Kegan.
  44. Mill J.S. (1981). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. I, Autobiography and Literary Essays, edited by J.M. Robson and J. Stillinger, introduction by Lord L. Robbins, Toronto and London, University of Toronto Press and Routledge and Kegan.
  45. Mill J.S. and H. Taylor Mill (1970). Essays on Sex Equality, edited with an introductory essay by A.S. Rossi, Chicago, Ill., University of Chicago Press.
  46. Moller Okin S. (1979). Women in Western Political Thought, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
  47. Moller Okin S. (1983-84). Patriarchy and Married Women’s Property in England: Questions on Some Current Views, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 17(2): 121-38.
  48. Mousset S. (2007). Olympe de Gouges et les droits de la femme, Paris, Edition du Félin.
  49. Nerozzi S. and P. Nuti (2011). Adam Smith and the Family, History of Economic Ideas, 19(2): 11-41.
  50. Pujol M.A. (1992). Feminism and Anti-Feminism in Early Economic Thought, Aldershot, U.K. and Brookfield, Vt., Edward Elgar.
  51. Pujol M.A. (1995). The Feminist Economic Thought of Harriet Taylor (1807-58). In Dimand, Dimand and Forget (eds.)(1995): 82-102.
  52. Pujol M.A. (2000). Harriet Taylor Mill. In Dimand, Dimand and Forget (eds.)(2000): 307-11.
  53. Rendall J. (1983). The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France and the United States, 1780-1860, London, Macmillan.
  54. Roncaglia A. (2005). The Wealth of Ideas: A History of Economic Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  55. Rose P. (1984). Parallel Lives. Five Victorian Marriages, New York, Vintage Books.
  56. Rossi A.S. (1970). Sentiment and Intellect. The Story of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor. In Mill and Taylor Mill (1970): 3-63.
  57. Schumpeter J.A. (1954). History of Economic Analysis, edited by E.B. Schumpeter, London, Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd.
  58. Sebastiani S. (2013). The Scottish Enlightenment. Race, Gender and the Limits of Progress, New York, Palgrave-Macmillan.
  59. Seiz J.A. and M.A. Pujol (2000). Harriet Taylor Mill, American Economic Review, 90(2): 476-9. DOI: 10.1257/aer.90.2.476
  60. Shanley M.L. (1989). Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England, 1850- 1895, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
  61. Taylor Mill H. (1831). The Nature of the Marriage Contract. In Taylor Mill (1998): 17-20.
  62. Taylor Mill H. (1832a). On Marriage. In Taylor Mill (1998): 21-4.
  63. Taylor Mill H. (1832b). Oppression of Women Due to Lack of Education. In Taylor Mill (1998): 5-7.
  64. Taylor Mill H. (1832c). Rights of Women. In Taylor Mill (1998): 24-5.
  65. Taylor Mill H. (1832d). Sources of Conformity. In Taylor Mill (1998): 137-42.
  66. Taylor Mill H. (1847-48). Women – (Rights of). In Taylor Mill (1998): 43-6.
  67. Taylor Mill H. (1868[1851]). Enfranchisement of Women, London, Trübner and Co.
  68. Taylor Mill H. (1998). The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill, edited by J.E. Jacobs and P.H. Payne, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind., Indiana University Press.
  69. Tulloch G. (1989). Mill and Sexual Equality, Boulder, Colo., Lynne Rienner.
  70. Wendell S. (1987). A (Qualified) Defense of Liberal Feminism, Hypatia, 2(2): 65-93. DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.1987.tb01066.x

Alberto Giordano, Free Labour, Free Women. Re-appraising Harriet Taylor’s Feminist Economics in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 2/2013, pp 45-62, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2013-002003